
Glass 
Book 






U.S. Pves., ig^i-is-^r ({i^ 



u^^ 



LETTERS AND PROCLAMATIONS OF THE PRESIDEXt. 

Executive Mansion, 
Waskingim, August 22, 1862. 

Dear Sir : I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through 
Ihe New York Trvbune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, 
which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert tlicm. If 
there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not 
^ow and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and 
^dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have 
always supposed to be right. 

As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as yzn say, I have not meant to 
leave any one in doubt. 

I would save the Union. I VN'ould save it the shortest way under the Consti- 
tution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union 
will be " the Union as it was.^' If there be those who would not save the 
Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with 
them. If there be those who Would not save the Union unless they could at 
the same tiaie destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount 
object in this struggle is to save the Union^ and is not either to save or to destroy 
slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it ; 
■and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it ; and if I could 
save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. 

What I do about slavery and the colored race, I d<o because I believe it helps 
•to save this Union ; and what i forbear, I forbear because I do v.ot believe it 
\vould iRjlp to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I 
am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe that 
•doing more v/ill help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be 
t'lTors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. 

I have here stated my purpose according to my views oi oficial duty; and I 
intend no modification of my oft-expressed ,vcrso»i(d wisli that all men every- 
where could be free. 

l^Ji-s, A. LI^X'OLX. 

Hon. Horace Greeley. 



The following message was communicated to Congress July 14, 1862": 
'"^^ Fenow-citizens oftlic S&imtc and House of Represent-atives : 

" Herewith is the draft of a bill to compensate any State which may abolish 
><lavery within its limits, the passage of which, substantiilly us presented, I 
respectfully aiwi earnestly recommend. 

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN.'^ 



2 '^^"^ ,. ,. 

Tie it enacted hy the Senate and House of Representatives of tlie United States 
of America in Congress assembled, That, wlienever the President of the United 
St^ates shall be satisfied that any State shall have lawfully abolished slavery 
within and throughout such State, either immediately or gradually, it shall be 
the duty of the President, assisted by the Secretary of the Treasury, to prepare 
and deliver to such State an amount of 6 per cent, interest-bearing bonds of the 
United States, equal to the aggregate value at dollars, per head, of all the slaves 
within such State as reported by the census of the year one thousand eight 
hundred and sixty; the whole amount for any one State to be delivered at once 
if the abolishment be immediate, or in an equal amiual instalment if it be 
gradual ; the interest to begin running on each bond at the time of delivery, and 
not before. 

And be it further enacted, That if any State having so received any such 
bonds shall, at any time afterwards, by law, reintroduce or tolerate slavery within 
its limits, contrary to the act of abolishment, vipon which such bonds shall have 
been received, the said bonds so received by the said State shall at once be nuU 
and void, in whosoever hands they may be, and such State shall refund to the 
States all the interest which may have been paid on such bonds. 



A PROCLAMATION. 



Whereas there appears in the public prints what purports to be a proclamation 
of Major CTcneral Hunter, in the words and figures following, to wit : 

*■• Headquarters of the Departmeat of the South, 

''Hilton Head, S. C, May 9, 1SG2. 
" General (Jrdeus, ) 
No. 11. i 

" The three St^tes of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, comprising the 
military department of the south, having deliberately declared themselves no 
longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having 
taken np arm;^ against the said United States, it became a militar}^ necessity 
to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th 
day of April, 1 SG2. 

" Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. 
The persons in these three States — Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina — 
heretofore held as slaves, are, therefore, declared free. 

"DAVID HUNTER, 
" Major General Commanding. 
"Edw. W. Smith, Acting Assistant Adjutant General." 

and whereas the same is producing some excitement and misunderstanding : 

Therefore — 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, proclaim and declare 
thiit the govenunent of the United States had no knowledge, information, or 
belief of an intention on the part of General Hunter to issue such a proclama- 
tion, nor has it yet any authentic information that the document is genuine ; and 
further, that neither General Hunter nor any other commander or pergon has 



been authorized by the government of the United States to make a proclamation 
declaring the slaves of any State free, and that the sxipposed proclamation now 
in question, -whether genuine or false, is altogether void, so far as respects su( h 
a declaration. 

I further make it known that, whether it be competent for me, as commander- 
in-chief of the army and navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free, 
and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indis- 
I>eusable to the maintenance of the government to exercise such a supposed 
power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and 
which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the 
field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in 
the armies and camps. 

On the Gth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Con- 
gress the adoption of a joint resolution, to be substantially as follows : 

''Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which 
may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary 
aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for the inconve- 
niences, public and private, produced by such a change of system." 

The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities 
ill both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn 
proposal of the nation to the States and people most immediately interested i:i 
the subject-matter. 

To the people of those States I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue; I 
beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, 
be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged con^iilera- 
tion of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisanj^oljtics 

This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproacliL-s 
upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come 
gently as the dews of heaven — not rending or wrecking anything. Will you 
not embrace it ? So much good has not been done by one effort in all pa^t 
time, as, in the providence of Cod, it is now your high privilege to do. M;)/ 
the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it ! 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the 
United States to be aflixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this the nineteentli day of May, in the year 
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the ind.-- 
pendence of the United States the eighty-sixth. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
By the President : 

Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State. 



By the President of the United States of America^ 

A PROCLAMATION. 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and com- 
mander-in-chief of the army and navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare 
that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practi- 
cally restoring the constitutional relations between the United States and each 
of the States and the people thereof, in which States that relation is or may be 
suspended or disturbed. 

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again recom- 
mend the adoption of a practical measure, tendering pecuniary aid to the free 
acceptance or rejection of all the slave States, so-called, the people whereof may 
not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which States may then 
have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, the immediate or 
gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits ; and that the effort 
to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent or 
elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing 
there, will be continued. 

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
hundred and sixty-three, ail persons held as slaves within any State, or desig- 
nated part of a State, the people whereof s^hall then be in rebellion against the 
United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free ;; and the execu- 
tive government of the United States, including the military and naval authori- . 
ies thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such pejsous, and will 
do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they 
may make for their actual freedom. 

That the Executive will, on the fir&t ^ay of January aforesaid, by proclama- 
tion, designate the States, or parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof,, 
respectively, shall then be in rebellion agaiast the United States j and the fact 
that any State, or the people thereof, shall, on that day, be in good faith repre-- 
sented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elec- 
tions, wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall ha-ye partici- 
pated, shall, in the absence of strong, countervailing testimony, be deemed con--' 
elusive evidence that such State, and the people theyeof, are not then in rebelliorsi 
against the United States. 

That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled "An act to 
make an additional article of war,''' approved March 13, 186S, aaid which act iff 
iu the words and figures following : 

"■ Be it snupted by the Senate and House of Representatives of t)te United States 
cf America i»- Congress assemhled. That hereafter the following shall be pro- 
mulgated as an additional article of war for the gotejuraent of the army of the 
United States,, aad shall be observed as such ;■ 

"Article^—. All officers or pei-sons in the military cr naval service of the 
I uiled States are prohibited frona employing any of tlie f-orcea of their respective" 



5 

commands for tLe purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor who 
may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to 
be due ; and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court-martial of violation 
of this article shall be dismissed from the service. 

" Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and 
after its passage." 

Also, to the 9th and 10th sections of an act entitled " An act to suppress in- 
.'jun-ection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property 
of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17, 186i, and which section^; 
are in the words and figures following : 

" Skc. 9. And he it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall 
hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, 
or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, and escaping from such 
persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army, and all slaves captured 
from such persons, or deserted by them, and coming under the control of the 
government of the United States, and all slaves of such persons found on or 
being within any place occupied by rebel forces, and afterwards occupied by 
the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be 
forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves. 

" Sec. 10. And be it further enacted. That no slave escaping into any State, 
Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivert'd 
up or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime or some 
offence against the laws, unless the person claiming the said fugitive shall first 
make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged 
to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States 
in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid or comfort thereto." 

No person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, 
under any pretence whatsoever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of 
any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any 
such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service. 

Aud I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military 
and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within 
their respective spheres of service, the acts and sections above recited. And 
the Executive will, in due time, recommend that all citizens of the United States, 
who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall, upon tlie 
restoration of the constitutional relations between the United States and the 
people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed, be compensated 
for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the 
United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this 22d day of September, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the independence (»f the 
United States the eighty-seventh. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLX, 
By the President : 

William H, Seward, Secretary of State, 



THE PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION'. 
By the President of the United States of America. 

A PROCLAMATION. 

Whereas, on the 22d day of September, in the year of oiir Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the 
United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: "That on 
the first day of January, in the year of our Lord 1863, all persons held as 
plaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall 
then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, 
and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including 
the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the free- 
dom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any 
of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom ; 

" That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by procla- 
mation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people 
thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and 
the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day in good faith 
be represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto 
at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have 
participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed 
conclusive evidence that svich State, and the people thereof, are not then in re- 
bellion against the United States :" 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by 
virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy 
ff the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority 
and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure 
for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with 
my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred 
(lays, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and 
j)arts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion 
against the United States the following, to wit : 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the parishes of St, Bernard, Plaquemines, 
Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne 
Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans,) 
]\Iississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and 
Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also 
the counties of Berkely, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess 
Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth,) and which 
excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were 
not issued. 



And by virtue of the power and. for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and de- 
clare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of 
States, are and henceforward shall be free; and that the executive government 
of the United States, including the military and naval anthoritioB thereof, will 
recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abetain frr-m 
all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them thai, 
in all cases when allowed, they labor ftiithfully for reasonable wages. 

And I fui'ther declare and make known that such persons, of suitable con- 
dition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison 
forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in 
said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to Ite an act of justice, warranted by 
the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of 
mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my nanie and caused the sea] of 
the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of 
r T our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty -three, and of the inde- 

L. S. 

pendenee of the United States the eighty-seventh. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
By the President: 
William H. Seward, Secretary of State. 



LETTER IN REPLY TO COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO DEMOCRATIC STATE COiT- 

VENTION. 

Washinoto.n, June 29, 1863. 

Gentlemen : The resolutions of the Ohio Democratic State Conventon, 
which you present me, together with your introductory and closing remarks, 
being in position and argument mainly the same as the resolutions of the Demo- 
ci-atic meeting at Albany, New York, I refer you to my response to the latter 
as meeting most of the points in the former- 

This response you evidently used in preparing your remarks, and I desire no 
more than that it be used with accuracy. In a single reading of your remarks, 
I only discovered one inaccuracy in matter which I suppose you took from that 
paper. It is where you say, " The undersigned are unable to agree with yoa 
in the opinion you have expressed that the Constitution is different in time of 
insurrection or invasion from what it is in time of peace and public security." 

A recurrence to the paper will show you that I have not expressed the opinion 
you suppose. I expressed the opinion that the Constitution is different in its 



8 

apflication in cases of rebellion or invasion, involving tlie public safety, from 
what it is in times of profound peace and public security ; and this opinion I 
adhere to, simply because by the Constitution itself things may be done in the 
one case which may not be done in the other. 

I dislike to waste a word on a merely personal point, but I must respectfully 
assure you that you will find yourselves at fault should you ever seek for evi- 
dence to prove your assumption that I " opposed in discussions before the people 
the policy of the Mexican war." 

You say : " Expunge from the Constitution this limitation upon the power of 
Congress to suspend the writ of habeas eorpus, and yet the other guarantees of 
personal liberty would remain unchanged." Doubtless if this clause of the 
Constitution, improperly called, as I think, a limitation upon the power of Con- 
gress, were expunged, the other guarantees would remain the same ; but the 
question is, not how those guarantees would stand with that clause out of the 
Constitution, but how they stand with that clause remaining in it, in case of 
rebellion or invasion, involving the public safety. If the liberty could be in- 
dulged in expunging that clause, letter and spirit, I really think the constitu- 
tional argument would be with you. 

My general view on this question was stated in the Albany response, and 
hence I do not state it now. I only add that, as seems to me, the benefit of the 
writ of Jiaheas corpus is the great means through which the guarantees of per- 
sonal liberty are conserved and made available in the last resort ; and corrobo- 
rative of this view is the fact that Mr. Vallandingham, in the very case in 
question, under the advice of able lawyers, saw not where else to go but to the 
habeas corpus. But by the Constitution the benelit of the writ of habeas corpus 
itself may be suspended, when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety 
may require it. 

You ask, in substance, whether I really claim that I may override all the 
guaranteed rights of individuals, on the plea of conserving the public safety — 
when I may choose to say the public safety requires it. This question, divested 
of the phraseology calculated to represent me as stmggling for an arbitrary 
personal prerogative, is either simply a question wh& shall decide, or an affirma- 
tion that nobody shall decide, what the public safety does require in cases of 
rebellion or invasion. The Constitution contemplates the question as likely to 
occur for decision, but it does not expressly declare who is to decide it. By 
necessary implication, when rebellion or invasion comes, the decision is to be 
made from time to time ; and I think the man whom, for the time, the people 
have, under the Constitution, made the commander-in-chief of their army and 
navy, is the man who holds the power and bears the responsibility of making 
it. If he uses the power justly, the same people will probably justify him; if 
he abuses it, he is in their hands to be dealt with by all the modes they have 
reserved to themselves in the Constitution. 

The earnestness with which you insist that persons can only, in times of 



rebellion, be laAvfully dealt with in accordance with the rules -for criminal trial;* 
and punishments in times of peace, induces me to add a word to what I !*aid on 
that point in the Albany response. You claim that men may, if they choose, 
embarrass those whose duty it is to combat a giant rebellion, and then be dealt 
with only in turn as if there were no rebellion. The Constitution itself rejects 
this view. The military arrests and detentions which have been made, inclu- 
ding those of Mr. Vallandigham, which are not diftereut in principle from the 
other, have been ^ov prevention, and not for 2>unis/i??ient — as injunctions to stay 
injury, as proceedings to keep the peace — and hence, like proceedings in such 
cases and for like reasons, they have not been accompanied with indictments, 
or trials by juries, nor in a single case by any punishment whatever beyond 
what is purely incidental to the prevention. The original sentence of imprison- 
ment in Mr. Vallandigham's case was to prevent injury to the military service 
only, and the modification of it was made as a less disagreeable mode to him of 
securing the same prevention. 

I am unable to perceive an insult to Ohio in the case of Mr. Vallandigham. 
Quite surely nothing of this sort was or is intended. I was wholly unaware 
that Mr. Vallandigham was, at the time of his an-est, a candidate for the Demo- 
cratic nomination for governor, until so informed by your reading to me the 
resolutions of the convention. I am grateful to the State of Ohio for many 
things, especially for the brave soldiers and officers she has given in the present 
national trial to the armies of the Union. 

You claim, as I understand, that according to my own position in the Albany 
response, Mr. Vallandigham should be released; and this because, as you claim, 
he has not damaged the military service by discouraging enlistments, encouraging 
desertions, or otherwise; and that if he had, he should have been turned over 
to the civil authorities under the recent acts of Congress. I certainly do not 
know that Mr. Vallandigham has specifically and by direct language advised 
against enlistments and in favor of desertions and resistance to drafting. We 
all know that combinations, armed in some instances, to resist the arrest of de- 
serters, began several months ago; that more recently the like has appeared iii 
resistance to the enrolment preparatory to a draft; and that quite a number 
of assassinations have occurred from the same animus. These had to be met 
by militaiy force, and this again has led to bloodshed and death. And now, 
under a sense of responsibility more weighty and enduring than any which is 
merely official, I solemnly declare my belief that this hindrance of the military, 
including maiming and murder, is due to the course in which Mr. Vallandigham 
has been engaged, in a greater degree than to any other cause; and it is due 
to him personally in a greater degree than to any other man. 

These things have been notorious, known to all, and of course known to Mr. 
Vallandigham. Perhaps I would not be wi'ong to say they originated with his 
especial friends and adherents. With perfect knowledge of them he has fre- 
quently, if not constantly, made speeches in Congress and before popular assem- 



10 

blies ; and if it can be sliowu that, with these things staring him in the face, he 
has ever uttered a word of rebuke or counsel against them, it will be a fact 
greatly in his favor with me, and one of which, as yet, I am totally ignorant • 
When it is known that the whole burden of his speeches has been to stir up 
men against the prosecution of the war, and that in the midst of resistance to 
it he has not been known in any instance to counsel against such resistance , it 
is next to impossible to repel the inference that he has counselled directly iu 
favor of it. 

With all this before their eyes, the convention you represent have nominated 
Mr, Vallandigham for governor of Ohio, and both they and you have declared 
the purpose to sustain the national Union by all constitutional means ; but, of 
course, they and you, in common, reserve to yourselves to decide what are con- 
stitutional means, and, unlike the Albany meeting, you omit to state or intimate 
that, in your opinion, an army is a constitutional means of saving the Union 
against a rebellion, or even to intimate that you are conscious of an existing 
rebellion being in progress with the avowed object of destroying that very 
Union. At the same time, your nominee for governor, in whose behalf you 
appeal, is known to you, and to the world, to declare against the use of an army 
to suppress the rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore, encourages desertion, 
resistance to the draft, and the like, because it teaches those who incline to 
desert and to escape the draft to believe it is your purpose to protect them, and 
to hope that you will become strong enough to do so. 

After a short personal intercourse with you, gentlemen of the committee,! can- 
not say I think you desire this effect to follow your attitude ; but I assure you 
that both friends and enemies of the Union look upon it in this light. It is a 
substantial hope, and by consequence a real strength to the enemy .X^It is a false 
hope, and one which you would willingly dispel. I Avill make the way exceed, 
ingly easy. . I send you duplicates of this letter, in order that you, or a majority, 
may, if you choose, indorse your names upon one of them, and return it thus 
indorsed to me, with the understanding that those signing are thereby committed 
to the following propositions, and to nothing else : 

1. That there is now a rebellion in the United States, the object and tendency 
of Avhich is to destroy the national Union ; and that, in your opinion, an army 
and navy are constitutional means for suppressing that rebellion. 

2. That no one of you will do anything Avhich, in his own judgment, will 
tend to hinder the increase or favor the decrease or lessen the efficiency of the 
army and navy, while engaged in the effort to suppress that rebellion ; and — 

3. That each of you will, in his sphere, do all he can to have the officers, 
soldiers, and seamen of the army and navy, while engaged in the effort to sup- 
press the rebellion, paid, fed, clad, and otherAvise well provided for and sup- 
ported. 

And M'ith the further understanding that upon receiving the letter and names 
thus indorsed, I will cause them to be published, which publication shall be, 
within itself, a revocation of the order iu relation to Mr. Vallandigham. 



u 

It will not escape observation that 1 consent to the release of ^Ir. Vallandig- 
ham upon terms not embracing any pledge from him or from others as to what 
he will or will not do. I do this because he is not present to speak for himself, 
or to authorize others to speak for him ; and hence I shall expect that on 
returning he would not put himself practically in antagonism with the position 
of his friends. But I do it chiefly because I thereby j)re vail on other influential 
gentlemen of Ohio to so define their position as to be of immense value to the 
army — thus more than compensating for the consequences of any mistake in 
allowing Mr. Vallandigham to return, so that, on the whole, the public safety 
will not have suffered by it. Still, in regard to Mr. Vallandigham and all 
others, I must hereafter, as heretofore, do so much as the public service may 
seem to require. 

I have the honor to be respectfully, yours, Szc, 

A. LINCOLN. 

Messrs. M. BuRCHARU, David A. HorcK, Geore Bliss, T. AV. Bartley, W. 
J. Gordon, John O'Neil, C. A. AVhite, W. E. Fink, Alexander Long, 
J. W. White, Georgh H. Pendleton, George L. Converse, Hanzo P. 
Noble, James R. Morris, W. A. Hutchins, Abner L. Backus, J. F. 
McKiNXEY, P. C. LeBlond, Louis Schaefer. 



THE PRESIDENT'S APPEAL TO THE BORDER STATES. 

The representatives and senators of the border slaveholding States having, 
by special invitation of the President, been convened at the Executive Mansion 
on July 12, 1862, Mr. Lincoln addressed them as follows from a written paper 
held in his hands : 

" Gentlemen : After the adjoiirnment of Congress, now near, I shall have 
no opportunity of seeing you for several months. Believing that you of the 
border States hold more power for good than any other equal number of mem- 
bers. I feel it a duty, which I cannot justifiably waive, to make this appeal 
to you. 

" I intend no reproach or complaint Avhen I assure you that, in my opinion, 
if you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual emancipation message of 
last March the war would now be substantially ended. And the plan therein 
proposed is yet one of the most potent and swift means of ending it. Let the 
States which are in rebellion see definitely and certainly that in no invent will 
the States you represent ever join their proposed confederacy, and they cannot 
much longer maintain the contest. But you cannot divest them of their hojte 
to ultimately have you with them so long as you show a determination to per- 
petuate the institution within your own States. Beat them at elections, as you 
have overwhelminglv done, and, nothing daunted, thev still claim vou as their 



12 

own. You and I know wliat tlie lever of their power is. Break that lever bo- 
fore their faces, and they can shake you no more forever. 

Most of you have treated me with kindness and consideration, and I trust 
you will not now think I improperly touch what is exclusively your own, when, 
for the sake of the whole country, I ask, " can you, for your States, do better 
than to take the course I urge?" Discarding punctilio and maxims adapted to 
more manageable times, and looking only to the uuprecedentedly stern facts of 
> lur case, can you do better in any possible event ] You prefer that the consti- 
tutional relation of the States to the nation shall be practically restored without 
disturbance of the institution ; and, if this were done, my whole duty, in this 
respect, under the Constitution and my oath of office, would he performed. But 
it is not done, and we are trying to accomplish it by war. The incidents of tlu^ 
war cannot be avoided. If the war continues long, as it must if the object be 
not sooner attained, the institution in your States will be extinguished by mere 
friction and abrasion — by the mere incidents of the war. It will be gone, and 
you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already. 
How much better for you and for your people to take the step which at once 
shortens the war, and secures substantial compensation for that which is sure to 
be wholly lost in any other event ! How much better to thus save the money 
which else we sink forever in the war ! How much better to do it while wo 
can, lest the war ere long render us pecuniarily unable to do it ! How much 
better for you, as seller, and the nation, as buyer, to sell out and buy out that 
without which the war could never have been, than to sink both the thing to 
be sold and the price of it in cutting one another's throats ! 

I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a decision at once to emanci- 
pate gradually. Room in South America for colonization can be obtained 
cheaply and in abundance, and when numbers shall be large enough to be com- 
pany and encouragement for one another, the freed people will not be so 
reluctant to go. 

I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned — one which threatens division 
among those who, united, are none too strong. An instance of it is known to 
you. General Hunter is an honest man. He was, and I hope still is, my 
friend. I valued him none the less for his agreeing with me in the general wish 
that all men everywhere could be freed. He proclaimed all men free within 
certain States, and I repudiated the proclamation. He expected more good and 
less harm from the measure than I could believe would follow. Yet, in repu- 
diating it, I gave dissatisfaction, if not offence, to many whose support the coun- 
try cannot afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The pressure in this 
direction is still upon me, and is increasing. By conceding what I now ask you 
can relieve me, and, much more, can relieve the country in this important point. 

Upon these considerations I have again begged your attention to the message 
of i\Iarch last. Before leaving the capital, consider and discuss it among your- 
selves. You are patriots and statesmen, and as such I pray you consider this 



u 

proposition ; and at the least commend it to the consideration of your Statcf and 
people. As you would perpetuate popular government for the best people in 
the woi-ld, I beseecli you that you do in nowise omit this. Our common 
country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest vieM'S and boldest action to 
bring a speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of government is saved to thf^ 
world ; its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy 
future fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand. To you, more than to 
any others, the privilege is given to assure that happiness and swell that 
grandeur, aud to link your own names therewith forever. 



LEJe'13 



